p 323 Brigade Commissar Kovalevskii, Acting Director of the Political Administration of the Northwest Front, informed his colleagues of the following with regard to German propaganda:

For your information: The Germans are dropping from airplanes special "passes" for [our men who decide to] become their prisoners. This is the text: "Get rid of all your kikes and communists."

"Kikes do not leave Russia voluntarily; they have to be annihilated, including their young children." . . . "The Soviet Union is the citadel of world Jewry." . . . "The likes are ruling Russia." . . .

Shneyer concludes that such Soviet communications "merely state[d] facts" and that countermeasures and counterpropaganda were neither proposed nor undertaken.

Again: "Kikes do not leave Russia voluntarily; they have to be annihilated, including their young children." Remember Himmler (Posen, 2nd speech, 6 October 1943): "We were faced with the question: what about the women and children? – I decided to find a clear solution to this problem too. I did not consider myself justified to exterminate the men – in other words, to kill them or have them killed and allow the avengers of our sons and grandsons in the form of their children to grow up. The difficult decision had to be made to have this people disappear from the earth." And this: (Sonthofen 24 May 1944): "I have not considered myself entitled - this concerns especially the Jewish women and children - to allow the children to grow into the avengers who will then murder our fathers and our grandchildren. That would have been cowardly. Consequently the question was uncompromisingly resolved."

p 333 Telegram no 3540-42, from Department of Propaganda of the High Main Command, guidance to German troops on both fronts:

Resolving the antisemitic question as a precondition for the solution of social problems should always be primary. There is no better soil for receiving antisemitism than the front-line soldiers of all countries.

Emphasizing that the German fight against the Jews of the entire world is the main idea of this war. . . . [signed] Berling . . .

According to Shneyer, this document is one example of how the German command "stressed that the basic goal of the whole war" was the fight against the Jews.

p 333 We've discussed how raw reports of the Soviets were progressively edited/censored to align better with the main line of the Soviet authorities, downplaying and even erasing the special facts of the annihilation of the Jews by the Germans. Shneyer quotes from a raw report of the NKVD, which observed that German anti-Jewish actions were carried out among the Soviet people without their radical nature raising problems for the Germans:

The annihilation of Jews with the knowledge of and in the presence of the [local] population, apparently did not arouse great indignation.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

2 July 1942 In a written special order to HSSPFs, Heydrich targets Communist party members, Communist officials, commissars and Jews:

All the following are to be executed:

Officials of the Comintern (together with professional Communist politicians in general; top and medium-level officials and radical lower-level officials of the Party, Central Committee, and district and sub-district committees; People's Commissars; Jews in Party and State employment, and other radical elements (saboteurs, propagandists, snipers, assassins, inciters, etc.). . . .

German propaganda in East

German propaganda radio broadcast, transcribed by a Red Army major (Shneyer, p 322)

What are you fighting for? Just look back and think, what do you intend to defend at the cost of your own blood, of your life? Whom are you defending? Those who enslaved you? The communists? The likes?

German leaflet (Shneyer, p 325)

For you, workers and peasants, [it will end] only when Stalin and his gang of kikes will be overthrown.

From special “pass” air-dropped by Germans, quoted by Soviet commissar (Shneyer, p 323)

Get rid of all your kikes and communists.

Testimony of Corporal Otto Tyshler

On June 21, 1941, we were attached to an armored tank group at Brest-Litovsk. Colonel General Guderian issued the following order “Unjustified humaneness with regard to communists and Jews is inappropriate. They should be shot mercilessly.”

In the summer of 1941, the commander of our regiment, Colonel Tomashki, warned us about the obligatory annihilation of all political officers, Jews, and members of the Soviet intelligentsia.”

10 October 1941 [Reichenau, 6th Army] Subject: Conduct of the troops in the Eastern Territories

The most important objective of the war against the Jewish-Bolshevist system is the complete destruction of its means of power and the elimination of the Asiatic influence within the sphere of European civilization. . . . the soldier must have full understanding of the necessity of a severe but just retribution upon the JewiSh subhuman elements. Its second purpose is to nip in the bud revolts in the rear of the armed forces, which, as experience shows, are always fomented by Jews. The struggle against the enemy behind the front is still not being taken seriously enough. . . .

Selections of Soviet POWs by Germans

Rubin Rabinovich (Shneyer, p 353)

They put us in rows of three. “Jews, communists, and commissars, step forward!” ordered a German. No one moved. They pushed four men forward and handed them shovels. They dug a pit. A soldier with an automatic weapon approached them and shot them point blank.

A. Shapiro (Shneyer p 233)

The Germans immediately began to separate out the Jews and commissars. They took 30 people, stripped them, beat them, and ordered them to dig a ditch, forced them to their knees, and shouted “judische Schweine.” They then began to shoot them and take them by the feet and throw them into a ditch.

Yakov Polishchuk (Shneyer, p 475)

One day [in the Brovary POW camp] they said that Jews, commissars, and political workers had to step forward. . . .The victims were shot outside the camp perimeter. . . .

Aleksander Ioselevitz (Shneyer, p 240)

They brought rusks and coffee into the [Jelgava POW] camp. An SS officer stood there with a dog, and a POW was next to them. When other prisoners would want a rusk, he [the POW] would say: “This one is a politruk.,” and the latter would be immediately taken aside and shot. The betrayer would then be awarded a coffee and two rusks. “And this one is a Jew,” the betrayer would say, and the Jew would be taken away and shot and, once again, the two rusks would be awarded. “And that one was a member of the NKVD,” the betrayer would say. The NKVD man would be shot and the betrayer would receive another two rusks.

Lieutenant Gordinskii (Shneyer p 348)

The Germans halted the column [of Soviet POWs on the march to the camp] and issued the order: “Jews, communists, and commissars, ten steps forward.” . . . All those who stepped forward were shot.

Aizik Yakovlevich Farb (Shneyer, p 416)

. . . all the prisoners were lined up and the Jews and commanders ordered to step forward . . .

Moisei Malkovich Krel’ (Shneyer, pp 245-246

The prisoners [POWs] were assembled on the square [in Majdanek] and, in broken Russian, an officer announced that “the Fuhrer wants to let you prisoners go home, but there are Jews and communists among you and, until you had them over, you will not be allowed home. . . .

The crowd began to make a noise and shout: “Hand over the kikes! They can be discovered but what about the communists and Komsomol members?” The officer replied: “Let’s begin with the Jews. We will find the communists ourselves.” . . . More than 100 Jews were discovered. They were shot that night.

Major Petr Palii (Shneyer, p 391)

. . . a German officer turned to the assembled prisoners and in Russian demanded that all politruks and commissars step forward. After the officer warned that he had a list and whoever did not step forward would be severely punished, 109 men stepped forward. . . . [Palii recounted]

They brutally beat [the translator Dragun] with clubs in front of those lined up and brought him to the group of political officers. Then the officer said, “Here is an example for you! A company commissar, a communist, and a like! If there are more such monsters among you, you’d better find them yourselves and throw them out of your ranks.”

N.I. Telmanov (Shneyer, p 239)

[About 5,000 POWs] were all pushed into the kolkhoz courtyard, forced to sit down, and told that all commissars, politruks, communists, and Jews had to step forward. . . . About 230 men were assembled. The Germans would take ten at a time, tear off their clothing and, with blows from rifle butts and sticks, chase them twenty-thirty paces aside and then shoot them with automatic weapons.

S.M. Tvorozhin (Shneyer p 343)

In September 1941, I was taken prisoner in the area of Mogilev. They assembled a large group of prisoners at the airport. They took aside two politruks and four Jewish privates. They ordered them to dig a grave, then they forced them to lie at the bottom. At that moment, two Jews attempted to escape but they were shot down trying to flee. The Germans ordered four Russian prisoners to bury the remaining four alive. They refused. Then the Germans shot all those who were lying in the pit . . .

Abram Pogrebetskii (Shneyer p 467)

I saw some captured soldiers from my regiment. The German put me down behind the lineup [Pogrebetskiiwas badly injured]. Germans and Vlasovites stood in front of the line of prisoners and shouted; “Are there any commanders here?” The response was: “No.” “Any commissars?” “No.” “Any Jews?” The Ukrainian POW’s immediately replied: “If there were, we would shoot them ourselves.”

The German officers walked along the row and took Sasha Pisman and two other Jews out of the line. They shot them immediately in front of those still standing in line.

Yosef Yakovlevich Getman (Shneyer pp 357-358)

When the Germans entered [the hospital where POWs were held at Kamenets-Podol’skii], the first questions [sic] was:

“Jude or commissar?” . . .

When I arrived at [a POW] camp, we were registered. . . . After the registration, they arranged us, more than 500 men, into two lines. Two SS men came up, accompanied by two translators, who were Russians. The order was given for everyone to strip naked. Then came the order: “Jews and commissars step forward.”. . .

Shneyer’s description of selection of POWs in Rowne, p 264, based on account from Grunya Grigor’eva

. . . they were all lined up and, there, too, a search for Jews was conducted. One of the prisoners, a woman named Kazachenko, walked along the line, pointing, “This one’s a Jew, this one’s a commissar, and this one’s a partisan.” Whoever was separated from the main group was shot.

German security police report, no. 12, 17 July 1942 (Shneyer, p 253)

In the Vladimir-Volynskii Officers’ Camp, there are 8,000 Russian-Soviet officers. Among them, we have discovered thirty-six communist officials and seventy-six Jewish-Bolshevik officers. The seventy-six Jewish officers have been handed over to the security service.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

Back to Otto Ohlendorf for a moment. In his Nuremberg IMT testimony, the commander of EG-D failed to deny the extermination of the Jews but tried blaming the 11th Army for the execution order in Simferopol. On this he was later, in NMT trial IX, seconded by Werner Braune, commander of EK-11b of EG-D.

Ohlendorf's testimony, Blue Series, vol. IV, pp 318-319

Braun's testimony, Green Series, vol. IV, pp 323-324

The trouble with the testimony of these two gentlemen is simple: historian Kiril Feferman finds no evidence for the Wehrmacht issuing any such orders. In the first place, Feferman reminds us, "Legally, the Army command was in no position to issue such an order, as the EG D was not subordinated to it." In the second place, all the evidence shows that the Army's role in the Jewish liquidation "was as an auxiliary factor in carrying it out," providing logistical support and lending some needed units. Also, in the postwar trials the Wehrmacht officers and men "downplayed the scope of the Army's involvement of the Jews"; according to the postwar testimony of the Army quartermaster, "The SD [that is, Ohlendorf's EG] would have conducted the extermination Aktion in any event." Finally, the documentation shows that "namely only with respect to the assignment of a small number of Feldgendarmen" were the Wehrmacht troops involved, not at the decision level, whereas "the Einsatzgruppe initiated, prepared, and conducted the killing." (Feferman, The Holocaust in the Crimea and the North Caucasus, pp 135-137)

So we have the spectacle of officers of the Einsatzgruppe blaming Wehrmacht commanders for the massacres, and Wehrmacht commanders pointing the finger at Ohlendorf's men, whilst men of neither organization, including those on trial for their lives, bothered denying the mass murder itself. The conclusion must be that the men knew that the evidence for the mass extermination of Simferopol's Jews was incontrovertible whilst they hoped they might find wiggle room on the question of ultimate responsibility.

To this last point, it is worth noting that EM no. 150 included this boast, which was roughly accurate,

Simferopol, Yevpatoria, Alushta, Krasubasar, Kerch, and Feodosia and other districts of western Crimea are free of Jews. From November 16 to December 15, 1941, 17,645 Jews, 2,504 Krimchaks, 824 Gypsies, and 212 Communists and partisans have been shot. Altogether, 75,881 persons have been executed.

Rumors about executions in other areas complicated the action in Simferopol. Reports about actions against Jews gradually filter down from fleeing Jews, Russians, and also from the loose talk of German soldiers.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

More bad news for the bizarre theories of our erstwhile little pal Monstrous and his revisionist colleagues, this from a footnote in Feferman:

Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kliest [snipped: biographical background for Kliest] . . . The protocols of von Kliest's interrogation by the Soviet authorities . . . are available in [long title of Russian book I am too lazy to type]. . . . Unfortunately, those documents indicate that Soviet interrogators never inquired in a pointed manner about German treatment of the local population, most specifically of the Jews in the German-occupied North Caucasus. When a Soviet interrogator just once posed this question, Ewald von Kliest confined himself to remark only that what occurred with the North Caucasus population during the German occupation was within the competence of the Einsatzgruppen and had nothing to do with the activities of the Wehrmacht.

It's almost as though - this sounds bizarre, I know - the Soviets weren't tarting up evidence about mass murder of the Jews at all and even that they allowed important points relevant to the genocide to pass by them. (Feferman, p 174)

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

On some occasions Jews threatened by German killing actions confronted the occupying authorities in the East about what their fate would be. There's an interesting case of this in Kaunas. Feferman has unearthed some other instances in the North Caucasus, where the local German authorities gave divergent, contradictory cover stories about their anti-Jewish actions.

1/ One case involves Krasnodar, where rumors of a German killing action earlier in Taganrog had reached a professor, Naum Vilik. The action in Taganrog had occurred in late October 1941 and claimed the lives of all or nearly all the town's Jews. There was a report in the Soviet press about this action but (Monstrous will not like this part) the press report didn't make clear that the victims of the Taganrog massacre were all Jews. A wartime Soviet report (1943) explained that in mid-1942,

N. Vilik told the [German] officer that rumors circulated saying that the Germans exterminated Jews. The German said: "Do you still believe in this Bolshevik lie? No one executes them. Look! In Taganrog they were allocated a separate neighborhood and they live there in complete safety and pursue their business. That's what will happen in Krasnodar.

Reality: Taganrog's Jews murdered. Cover story: Germans set up apartheid system in Taganrog, allowing Jews separate development. Promise: we will do to you in Krasnodar what we did to the Jews in Taganrog. Fulfillment of promise: here and here.

2/ A second case which Feferman discusses was in Kisovodsk, where Jews had been escaping the town successfully. Here the German authorities told the Jews that they only meant to separate them from the Aryans in town by mean of marking their clothes (presumably with the infamous star) but otherwise would "guarantee their existence 'in respect and quiet.'" So the cover story in Kisovodsk was a gentler form of racial separation, without physical isolation as supposedly in Taganrog.

3/ Third, Feferman calls attention to the town of Novorossoiisk. In Novorossoiisk, according to a 1943 testimony, residents were told that

The rumors that the Germans killed Jews were false. The German command is willing to grant shelter for the Jews, as the town is temporarily bombarded.

A new cover story: the Germans would protect the Jews from harm.

4/ Last, Feferman says that "in many places" the cover story used by the Germans was, as we know, resettlement (more on this later, in another post) but that "non-compliance with their order," in Feferman's words, "would lead to heavy retribution, including capital punishment." An example of the use of this cover story is Stavropol; in that city the German assembly order, by which Jews were collected for the execution action, stated (falsely) that the order was issued because of "the necessity to resettle the Jews into the areas free of population owing to military operations."

Feferman writes of the fate of the Jews in these North Caucasus towns that "The annihilation of the Jews in the vast territories of the North Caucasus conducted predominantly by the EG D was so comprehensive that a German military observer had good reasons to claim that as of October 1942 no more Jews remained in the region." (citing another document which Monstrous will need to claim was forged, YVA JM/5716, dated 10 January 1943)

Feferman calls attention to an important feature of German policy: "the Germans were determined to prevent Jews from escaping from the occupied areas." For an authority which claimed to want the Jews out of the German sphere of influence and which sometimes claimed to be resettling Jews to a usually but not always unnamed place, such a policy is on its face problematic. Why not let the Jews flee if they are not wanted? "In terms of the Germans' genocidal policy, unlike an ordinary Soviet citizen, whose presence or absence usually mattered little to the Germans, a Jews was to be caught and murdered everywhere."

(Feferman, pp 181-187, 195)

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

Since these recent posts are inexorably leading to such lively counter-arguments from our HDers, I think I'll add a few more examples of camouflage/cover stories to the last post:

* Feferman notes that in rural areas of the North Caucasus, the Germans told local Jews that they were being assembled, before the Aktionen, in order to

- ready them to "perform permanent work"- prepare for "resettlement"- begin "evacuation into the deep of the rear"

* Jewish patients in the hospitals of the North Caucasus region were culled by German units; in Stavropol the Germans utilized the "apartheid" theme, telling hospital administrators that the culling was to send the Jewish patients to special hospitals for them.

* The Germans murdered orphans in the North Caucasus by raiding orphanages and gassed the orphans, according to Feferman, "under the pretexts of 'resettling [the children] in underpopulated areas of Ukraine with the rest of the Jews" or, again employing the apartheid ruse, to put the Jewish orphans into separate homes for Jewish children.

(Feferman, pp 210, 216, 226)

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

Statistical Mechanic wrote:On some occasions Jews threatened by German killing actions confronted the occupying authorities in the East about what their fate would be. . . .

So a bit of a different example of this is the Karaites in the Crimea. Members of this group, which practiced a non-Talmudic form of Judaism and were of ancient but obscure origin, were in the dark as to whether the Nazis would consider them to be Jews. Eventually Himmler - consulted by Ohlendorf on what to do with the Karaites - decided that the Karaites were not to be subject to the anti-Jewish persecutions and in fact, as allegedly Tatar related, could be induced to collaborate as the Nazis took a bit of a Muslim turn.

But before this, having learned of the extermination campaign, Crimean Karaites lobbied the occupying forces. Interestingly, few Karaites had fled the Germans' advance, whereas about 40% of the Ashkenazi Jews had done so. Karaites assured local authorities that they were separate to the Ashkenazis, had enjoyed a different status to them under the tsars, and had Mongol origins.

One German official, a deputy major, testified after the war that the SD had summoned him to discuss the Karaites' status: "In Evaptoriia, the annihilation of the Jews by the Germans was known, as well as the fact that the Karaites were worried about their fate and that they were [trying to] prove that they were not Jews." This official claimed that he'd provided background to the SD that the Karaites "constituted an independent people who had nothing in common with the Jews." Material like that described in his postwar testimony turns out to have been picked up in EM 142, along with other EG D research findings.

Himmler's decision to exempt the Karaites from annihilation is the flip side of the coin on the other side of which Berlin had decided in favor of annihilating the Jews in the occupied USSR. The knowledge of the Karaites of the fate of the Jews in the region speaks to the implementation of that decision.

(Feferman, pp 268-280)

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

Statistical Mechanic wrote:On some occasions Jews threatened by German killing actions confronted the occupying authorities in the East about what their fate would be. . . .

So a bit of a different example of this is the Karaites in the Crimea. Members of this group, which practiced a non-Talmudic form of Judaism and were of ancient but obscure origin, were in the dark as to whether the Nazis would consider them to be Jews. Eventually Himmler - consulted by Ohlendorf on what to do with the Karaites - decided that the Karaites were not to be subject to the anti-Jewish persecutions and in fact, as allegedly Tatar related, could be induced to collaborate as the Nazis took a bit of a Muslim turn.

But before this, having learned of the extermination campaign, Crimean Karaites lobbied the occupying forces. Interestingly, few Karaites had fled the Germans' advance, whereas about 40% of the Ashkenazi Jews had done so. Karaites assured local authorities that they were separate to the Ashkenazis, had enjoyed a different status to them under the tsars, and had Mongol origins.

One German official, a deputy major, testified after the war that the SD had summoned him to discuss the Karaites' status: "In Evaptoriia, the annihilation of the Jews by the Germans was known, as well as the fact that the Karaites were worried about their fate and that they were [trying to] prove that they were not Jews." This official claimed that he'd provided background to the SD that the Karaites "constituted an independent people who had nothing in common with the Jews." Material like that described in his postwar testimony turns out to have been picked up in EM 142, along with other EG D research findings.

Himmler's decision to exempt the Karaites from annihilation is the flip side of the coin on the other side of which Berlin had decided in favor of annihilating the Jews in the occupied USSR. The knowledge of the Karaites of the fate of the Jews in the region speaks to the implementation of that decision.

(Feferman, pp 268-280)

This relates back to your post, especially this bit:

While this document makes clear that there was the intention of wiping out the Jews of Simferopol and that the Wehrmacht was aware of this, two problems kept this killing from being carried out in November 1941. One of these problems was of an ideological, the other of a practical nature.

1. The Karaim, a Turkic people that adhered to Judaism;

2. The Krimchaks or Krymchaks: according to Angrick, they were descendants of Spanish Sephardic Jews who no longer adhered to the Jewish religion.

3. Ashkenazi Jews emigrated from Central Europe and their descendants.

While there was no doubt that the third of these groups would be wiped out, there was uncertainty among Nazi policy makers about how to handle the other two. After consulting his "scientific" experts on "Jewish matters", Himmler himself – who claimed it his prerogative to decide who was and who was not a Jew – eventually decided that the Karaim would be spared, as they were not Jewish by "race". The Krimchaks, on the other hand, would be killed, because "racially" they were Jews. Himmler’s decision must have been taken between 5 December 1941 (the date of Operational Situation Report 142, which still refers to the "Krimchak issue") and 9 December 1941, the date on which, as will be detailed later on, the Krimchaks of Simferopol were wiped out.

In the cuckoo world of National Socialism "racial Jews" that no longer practiced Judaism died while active practitioners lived.

As to the Krymchaks, approximately 70% were exterminated as racial Jews. The decision, says Feferman, was made by Himmler, after an appeal from EG D, between 5 and 8-9 December 1941. This matches what you've quoted.

Back to rumors and inquiries, the Krymchaks in Kerch, where over 800 lived, knew of the killing actions. At first, in November, they were exempted from the Jewish registration; but in late November, before Himmler's decision, they were instructed to register. A postwar testimony by a Kymchak survivor noted the "macabre rumors" of the time and how five of Krymchaks brought the authorities materials on the Krymchaks. Whilst the registration proceeded, the Krymchaks were not assembled with the Ashkenazi Jews of Kerch on 1 December, when the mass shooting of the Ashkenazi Jews took place. The Krymchaks were aware, however, of the fate of the Ashkenazi Jews of Kerch. It was not until early January that the Krymchaks received their assembly order. Feferman speculates that both the clarification problem and manpower shortages led to such a lengthy delay. Before the execution could occur, Soviet forces landed in Kerch and re-took the town, enabling 200-300 of the Kerch Kymchaks to be evacuated - the rest were executed in May 1942 when the Germans re-took Kerch.

To deceive the Krymchaks the Germans assured them that assembly orders were for evacuation and that no harm would befall them. Feferman says that sometimes the doomed Krymchaks assembled attired in their best traditional clothing. Feferman cites a military report from 1942 explaining that the Feldgendarmerie helped identify "Jews and Krymchaks" who'd managed to avoid the earlier mass executions and that "All those arrested are transferred to the Sk stationed here for further treatment."

(Feferman, pp 280-292)

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

In EM 190, 8 April 1942, EG-D, Simferopol, explained the result of the EG's major killing actions of Nov 1941 through Jan 1942, and subsequent mopping up operations, in the northern part of the Crimea:

Except for small groups, which occasionally show up in the northern Crimea, there are no more Jews, Krymchaks, or Gypsies. As experience of the past weeks has proven, wherever they have been able to hide their identity with false documents, etc., they will be recognized anyway sooner or later. . . .

The EG continued to deal with remnant survivors discovered in searches or given away by neighbors. Even as anti-Jewish operations had wound down in the Crimea, the majority of EG-D's victims were apparently still Jews:

In the second half of March, a total of 1,501 people were executed.

Among these were:588 Jews405 Communists247 partisans261 asocial elements, including Gypsies,To date, 91,678 have been shot.

Arad, Krakowski & Spector, The Einsatzgruppen Reports, pp 325-326

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

Due to the late entry of the Germans into the Crimea, the Soviet partisan movement and networks were up and running, and effective, by the time of the occupation. Feferman cites a late December 1942 Soviet document recording that 3,134 partisans had been recruited (p 342). The movement was organized and controlled by the Communists, with admission during this period only to ideologically reliable people, of whom almost all were Party members.

Jews were at a disadvantage in finding rescue among the partisans in part because nearly 3/4 of the Jews in the Crimea lived in towns, where the Germans controlled movement of people strictly. Further, partisan bases were difficult to reach from towns, even if urban Jews could have moved about. Rural Jew could, however, reach and join partisan units more easily. Feferman estimates that "The partisan movement served as a rescue channel for hundreds of Crimean Jews," mostly rural Jews. He also notes that "The Crimean researcher Mark Goldenberg calculated that in 1941-1944 '233 Jews and Krymchaks' fought among the ranks of the Crimean partisan units. In 1941, Jews made up 6.5% of the total number of the Crimean partisans." (p 345)

It should be noted that the Germans were extremely successful in destroying the Crimean partisan units. After partisans caused disruption and some casualties in the first weeks of the occupation, the Germans were able to mount effective anti-partisan efforts, killing most of the region's partisans. By early 1942 partisan numbers had fallen to 760. Under German attack and suffering from the severe food shortages, over half the partisan recruits had perished by the end of 1942. (pp 342-343) Feferman finds that the Soviet partisan movement generally didn’t utilize Jews even as the dimensions of the Jewish tragedy in the Crimea became clear. (p 341) (He notes some exceptions as well as cases of Krymchaks becoming partisans.)

In the Crimea, then, the HD argument that the EGs were only about partisans and security, killing Jews only in this context, is as fictitious as in other regions we've discussed. Anti-partisan actions were important to the Germans, but the partisan movement was a Soviet, not Jewish, phenomenon; Jewish participation in the Crimea never grew to the significance of Jewish participation, say, in the Baltics by 1943-1944; and anti-Jewish actions of the EGs were separate to German anti-partisan warfare.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

The Jewish extermination in the North Caucasus shows very clearly how nonsensical the HD argument is that the killings of Jews came in the context of anti-partisan or security operations, supposedly based on the Nazis' view that Jews formed the core of the partisan movement.

The Germans entered the North Caucasus "late," in the summer of 1942. In this context, the late occupation had two important consequences for the region. First, in the early months of the war, the region was seen by the Soviets as a sanctuary; many refugees from was zones entered the region. These refugees included many Jews, so many that the majority of Jews in the North Caucasus by the time of the occupation consisted of Jews who had evacuated to there from somewhere else. As men of fighting age in the was zones had entered the Red Army or local formations, the evacuated population was skewed: the Jews who came to the North Caucasus were overwhelmingly female, very young, and elderly.

Second, the authorities in the region had even more time than those in the Crimea to organize a significant underground and partisan movement. Two examples will show its scope: Krasnodarskii krai, ~5000-6000 fighters; Stavropol'skii krai, ~1700-2000. As in the Crimea, the core of these formations were local "extermination battalions"; membership was drawn from the ranks of Communist Party and Komsomol members. Unlike in the Crimea, on the other hand, the partisan units in the North Caucasus were never devastated by German attacks to any great extent. Also, local formations of insurgents appeared alongside the official partisan units in the North Caucasus.

Jewish participation in the partisan and underground movements was minimal. In Krasnodarskii krai, there were 39 Jews alongside 5775 Russians in the partisan units; in Stavropol'skii korai, 20 Jews and 1704 Russians. According to Feferman, "there is no evidence concerning Jewish participation in the ranks of [local insurgents].

What explains such low Jewish involvement with partisans in the North Caucasus? After all, when the Germans entered the region, the Jewish exterminations in the occupied east had been underway for over a year - wouldn't local Jews have had every reason to resist? Feferman explains that, first and foremost, the partisan detachments sought men of fighting age, ideologically reliable, known and trusted. But the Jewish population of the region was mostly newcomers without local ties and acquaintances, mostly female, and skewed toward children and the elderly. Also, the peak partisan activity came after the Jews of the region were annihilated.

The problem which both the North Caucasus and the Crimea raise for HDers and their "partisans" argument should be clear. Where Jewish participation in the partisan movement was negligible to minimal, the Nazis proceeded systematically and relentlessly to exterminate the Jews, independent of security operations. Effective anti-partisan warfare in the region had nothing to do with Jewish partisans, Jewish units, or any Jewish underground, as these factors were non-existent to barely existing; fighting the Jews, so to speak, was a diversion of German resources and attention away from security issues. Yet, the onslaught against the Jews was organized and sustained. This is shown in part in the Ems, which, as in other regions, called out the actions against Jews specifically, and reported on progress in rendering the territory free of Jews, as an end in and of itself.

(Feferman, pp 81-90, 347-352, 372-376)

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

Feferman describes how the exterminations were carried out in the Crimea and the North Caucasus.

For the most part, when the Germans entered an area, they required a complete registration of the Jews living there. Despite the outcry among Jews that they were singled out in this way, almost all of them registered. Registration was usually followed by imposition of a Yellow Star order; movement restrictions, which were far stricter in the Crimea (including the death penalty for violations) than in the North Caucasus; forced labor (mostly humiliating make-work); and looting of Jewish property (tribute levies, outright theft, etc). Few ghettos or camps were formed, and Jewish Councils, where they existed, bore little resemblance to those of Poland (in these regions the councils carried out a few restricted duties like conducting the Jewish registrations, passing along orders, etc.). Jews were treated harshly during this period - e.g., rapes and looting were reported - and for the most part left to their own devices to secure food.

Usually there was a short gap (weeks) until the Jews were ordered to assemble for some declared purpose like resettlement or work deployment or for no declared reason at all. Often the local Kommandatur of the Wehrmacht issued the assembly order and in most cases it was a community-wide order. The assembled Jews could be held for hours or a few days. Jews were told to bring a small amount of personal property to the assembly points. At this time, the German tactics often shifted to a milder course; the Jews were generally not maltreated and even were dealt with "properly" and with some politeness as they were gathered. The deception tactics of the Germans worked by and large and almost all Jews reported to the assembly sites. Another factor in the Germans' favor was food - Jews mostly had little official access to food, and the Germans could use food to induce the Jews to report. Once the Jews were assembled - in schools or public buildings, at the Kommandaturen post, etc - the Germans and local collaborators reverted to harsh treatment, with beatings and even specific death threats dispensed. There were cases of rapes during the preface to the killing operations. Units of EG-D were usually in charge of this phase.

Special tactics were used to clear institutions like hospitals and orphanages. German units arrived, quickly culled the Jews in these institutions, and then took the Jews off. Gas vans were generally used to murder the Jews taken from such institutions.

Jews were then led to killing sites - anti-tank trenches and ravines, nearby woods, abandoned industrial or military structures, etc. The Jews were marched to the site under armed guard. The men of the EG organized and led the extermination actions and would be assisted by units of local collaborators or Wehrmacht personnel. The EG units were generally small, at the Teilkommando level. The Wehrmacht often provided logistical support (trucks, fuel, drivers) and assisted in combing operations and Jew hunts. Execution was usually by shooting but sometimes gas vans were used. Gas vans were employed extensively during the mopping up operations in 1942. (Feferman does not discuss burial.)

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

Statistical Mechanic wrote:Jewish participation in the Crimea never grew to the significance of Jewish participation, say, in the Baltics by 1943-1944

.......and even then, Jews never made up a majority of the total amount of partisans.

In the Baltics Jewish participation in the partisan movement came later, as well, after the initial and major killing operations. One can almost say not that the Germans were killing the region's Jews because the Jews were partisans but that some Jews went over to the partisans because the Germans were killing the region's Jews. So even in the Baltic region, where the Jewish role in the armed resistance was greater than in, say, the Crimea and the North Caucasus, the "partisan" argument is silly, failing to account for the initial German onslaught against the Jews - before the development of significant partisan presence and well before Jewish units were created - and wildly exaggerating the Jewish role in the armed resistance once it emerged.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

Feferson makes note of some EG-D reports (e.g, EM 150) which discuss knowledge of the murders spreading amongst the Crimean population. His conclusion, which differs somewhat to that of the author of the EMs, is that the civilian Russian population was mostly responsible. The conduct of the executions, described above, was why: the Germans' secrecy precautions were not complete or effective (public notice of assembly, public brutality and atrocities, plundering of Jewish property, sudden disappearance of the Jews, digging of graves near the towns, etc.).

The Simferopol Orstkommandatur also recorded the killing operations. Report I/853 (p 384) is an example of this: after discussing the Jewish population in the city as of early November 1941, after the exodus as the Germans approached, the report noted,

The SD will execute the remaining 11,000 Jews.

Feferson's conclusion is that the Germans didn't mind word getting out about the executions as it terrorized the locals at a time when the partisan insurgency was heating up and coercive measures were needed; locals feared that they would be next for extermination actions. EM 150 reported this reaction (p 387):

In general, the shooting of the Jews has been positively received after the initial fear of similar treatment for the rest of the population subsided.

And a Russian who lived in Sevastopol testified in 1944 to Soviet investigators (p 388) that

The gendarme who drove me to work threatened that if we did not obey the German authorities we should face the same fate as the Jews at the 8th station.

Local collaborators, including village officials, were often involved in the operations and in turning Jews over to the Germans for execution. As a 1944 Soviet investigation reported on the "Molotov" kolkhoz in the Crimea (p 396):

In December 1941, the Germans and local policemen conducted a round-up and execution of the Jews. 21 people escaped and hid in a ditch. They came to get bread in the village. The starosta [village head] assembled men and conducted an ambush. Thus, those who came to get bread . . . were caught. They were locked in the office and guarded by policemen.

Many Crimean Tatars collaborated and EG-D raised a force of Tatars. This troop assisted the EG in its work by carrying out arrests of Jews, locating Jews, guarding Jews during Aktionen, etc. One of the troop members testified in 1950 (p 410):

In February 1942 I guarded the detained Jews . . . marched [them] out for execution outside the town of Dzhankoi. We prepared those detained for the execution. . . . The germans shot them. We dug [the graves of] those executed.

Feferman observes that it is not clear that this man did not participate in the shooting - his testimony may have been shaded to protect himself on this point - as the SD often bound recruits via "blood" (direct killing) and there is evidence that Tatar troops shot Jews.

Through such a variety of local sources did news of the mass murder of the Jews spread in the Crimea.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

An interesting RSHA document which Feferman quotes, p 466. The passage quoted by Feferman deals with the Germans’ concerns about the management of the Orthodox churches in the occupied east and how the Germans might use them, "if skillfully handled" so that "the solution of the Church question in the occupied eastern regions . . . could be wonderfully resolved in favor of a religion free from Jewish influence." The directive is dated 31 October 1941 and contains this note:

It is clear that the confinement of "God's chosen people" to ghettos and the eradication of this people . . . are compulsory measures that will further the cause of liberating the eastern regions of Europe.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

Statistical Mechanic wrote:Jewish participation in the Crimea never grew to the significance of Jewish participation, say, in the Baltics by 1943-1944

.......and even then, Jews never made up a majority of the total amount of partisans.

In the Baltics Jewish participation in the partisan movement came later, as well, after the initial and major killing operations. One can almost say not that the Germans were killing the region's Jews because the Jews were partisans but that some Jews went over to the partisans because the Germans were killing the region's Jews. So even in the Baltic region, where the Jewish role in the armed resistance was greater than in, say, the Crimea and the North Caucasus, the "partisan" argument is silly, failing to account for the initial German onslaught against the Jews - before the development of significant partisan presence and well before Jewish units were created - and wildly exaggerating the Jewish role in the armed resistance once it emerged.

To clarify: when it doesn't matter for the German end game of extermination or eradication or mass killing of the Jews whether partisans were operating nearby or not, whether Jews were among the partisans or not, whether the area was an active war zone or not, whether security from the German point of view was better or worse, whether food was relatively scarce or abundant, whether the Jews were Polish or Russian or Lithuanian or German or Slovakian or Hungarian or Dutch and so on, whether the Jewish population was urban or rural, whether Jews were native to an area or newcomers, whether Jews were cooperative or resistant, whether Jews in the region were numerous or not, whether the Jews in the territory were sympathetic to the Communists or not - HD arguments based on such factors being the motivation for anti-Jewish actions are tendentious and ahistorical. Mistaking tactics, based on local factors and special situations, aimed at getting to the end for the end itself is also a mystification. There is, after all, a common denominator across these various factors and situations; pretending there isn't, is a form of lying.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

Statistical Mechanic wrote:An interesting RSHA document which Feferman quotes, p 466. The passage quoted by Feferman deals with the Germans’ concerns about the management of the Orthodox churches in the occupied east and how the Germans might use them, "if skillfully handled" so that "the solution of the Church question in the occupied eastern regions . . . could be wonderfully resolved in favor of a religion free from Jewish influence."

Fritz's book gave me the impression that the local population would not be allowed to form congregartions - there was a general consensus that the Russians would be restricted to a very simple education system that would teach them to sign their names, count to a few hundred, obey Germans, and nothing else. It is hard to imagine freedom of religion in that context - particularly from the notoriously anti-Christian Nazis. I know that the Catholic Church in Poland was brutally suppressed, and I can;t see why it would have been nay different for the Russians. Western Ukraine was a different story but they were an exception.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

Statistical Mechanic wrote:As to the Krymchaks, approximately 70% were exterminated as racial Jews. The decision, says Feferman, was made by Himmler, after an appeal from EG D, between 5 and 8-9 December 1941. This matches what you've quoted.

Back to rumors and inquiries, the Krymchaks in Kerch, where over 800 lived, knew of the killing actions. At first, in November, they were exempted from the Jewish registration; but in late November, before Himmler's decision, they were instructed to register. A postwar testimony by a Kymchak survivor noted the "macabre rumors" of the time and how five of Krymchaks brought the authorities materials on the Krymchaks. Whilst the registration proceeded, the Krymchaks were not assembled with the Ashkenazi Jews of Kerch on 1 December, when the mass shooting of the Ashkenazi Jews took place. The Krymchaks were aware, however, of the fate of the Ashkenazi Jews of Kerch. It was not until early January that the Krymchaks received their assembly order. Feferman speculates that both the clarification problem and manpower shortages led to such a lengthy delay. Before the execution could occur, Soviet forces landed in Kerch and re-took the town, enabling 200-300 of the Kerch Kymchaks to be evacuated - the rest were executed in May 1942 when the Germans re-took Kerch.

To deceive the Krymchaks the Germans assured them that assembly orders were for evacuation and that no harm would befall them. Feferman says that sometimes the doomed Krymchaks assembled attired in their best traditional clothing. Feferman cites a military report from 1942 explaining that the Feldgendarmerie helped identify "Jews and Krymchaks" who'd managed to avoid the earlier mass executions and that "All those arrested are transferred to the Sk stationed here for further treatment."

(Feferman, pp 280-292)

Just to follow up about Simferopol, Michael Burleigh writes in Moral Combat, chapter "Barbarossa," Pages 251-252, that the Wehrmacht supplied trucks, ammunition, 2,320 soldiers, 50 gendarmes and 20 field police to assist in killing the Jews there. The Wehrmacht also carried out raids to seize Jews who hid from the initial actions. The Wehrmacht requested and assisted in the killing because of low food supplies. Manstein's staff received a gift of 120 watches along with a promise of 50 more. Manstein requested the watches as a thank you for assisting in the actions.

A bit of a clarification, from Feferman's pov: In a different post, I quoted from a report of the Ortskommandatur (I/853) in Simferopol, which included knowledge of the plan ("The SD will execute the remaining 11,000 Jews").

But Feferman says that only select forces from the Wehrmacht participated in Simferopol and that postwar SD blame-shifting testimonies overstated the Wehrmacht role there, which differs to Burleigh's account, it seems (see this post). In Feferman's view a small detachment of the Feldgendarmen only participated in the mass murder action of 11-13 December, when 10,000 Jews were killed. Feferman does describe how the Wehrmacht searched houses and carried out executions of Jews and oversaw the Jewish registration in the weeks leading up to the action.

But the Simferopol case is the one which Feferman uses to illustrate how SD-men, including Ohlendorf, blamed 11th Army officers for decisions they made and actions they undertook, attributing real or supposed motives (e.g., food supply, security) to the military officials and exaggerating the Army's role.

In his 1959 interrogation, SD-man Heinz Hermann testified that the Wehrmacht provided the trucks, fuel, drivers and other logistical support for the big killing action in Simferopol, but, according to Feferman, this "is only partly corroborated, namely only with respect to the assignment of a small number of Feldsgendarmen. As for the rest of the statements, they are not supported by contemporary evidence [and] are partly or entirely refuted by the postwar testimonies offered by former AOK 11 men." (p 136) Feferman states that once the Jews were assembled for the killing, in a former Communist Party headquarters building, "they were handled by the Einsatzgruppen men." Even the assembly of the Jews is described as an SD operation. The Jews were taken from the building where they'd been gathered to anti-tank ditches where they were shot. According to Feferman, it is plausible that the army provided some logistical support, given the small size of the EG detachment in Simferopol.

Feferman says, however, that members of the Reich Labor Service were invited guests to the extermination action and were even permitted to participate in the Aktion. The killing action was conducted, in Feferman's view, by EG-D with only minor support as described.

Feferman says, however, that as the killing operations went on, and in the mopping up operations that followed these actions, EG personnel were not sufficient, so Manstein's Feldgendarmen were assigned to support the EG. It is in this context that Feferman describes how Manstein requested the watches of EG-D's victims; notably, Manstein had iron crosses and Army merit crosses awarded to members of EG-D, showing the cooperative relations between the Einsatzgruppe and Army.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

2 July 1942 In a written special order to HSSPFs, Heydrich targets Communist party members, Communist officials, commissars and Jews . . .

Some more on the Communists/commissars + Jews formula, from Feferman's book on the Crimea and the North Caucasus . . . illustrations of the Nazi pattern of singling out Jews as a category of people to be dealt with, alongside Communists/commissars . . . just a couple more that struck me as interesting.

January 1942, Communist Party authorities in Stavropol area reported that locals were echoing German propaganda, noting that "draftees were saying 'Beat Zhidy and Communists!'" (p 94)

Nazi leaflet, aimed at Red Army soldiers in the Crimea, which claimed that Ukrainians who defected "were allowed to go home, they work their own fields, but without Zhidy and Commissars!" (p 168)

Police action in rural areas, in this case in the North Caucasus, in which Germans searched for those they wanted to arrest on the spot (pp 224-225): A Russian evacuee from the "Rote Fahne" kolkhoz, describing her journey:

The German advance unit cut off the [rescue] route. . . . On our way, we came across groups of Jews removed from carts with crying old men and wailing children. Them, we were caught by the policemen from a concentration camp. "Are there communists? Are there Jews?" The [kolkhoz] team-leader . . . told them: "On the first cart there are evacuees." The policemen asked me to produce my passport but I had none. They took me for Jewish and arrested me.

A testimony concerning help from unexpected quarters (p 334):

In Feodosoaiia, some women who spoke German made the acquaintance of the German prison guards. . . . [T]hese women began to fetch forged certificates and documents for Communists and Jewish acquaintances. . . .

Nazi leaflet directed to Cossacks, many of whom collaborated with the Nazis in the North Caucasus (p 447). Note the mighty Cossack who, virtually depicting Heydrich's infamous order, hauls off a frightened Jew and confused Red Army officer:

It seems what Monstrous and the other HDers in this thread struggle to grasp was common knowledge: the Germans were after the Jews, along with Party members and officials, in the occupied Soviet Union. They said so over and over, and they acted on this intention repeatedly.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

In a number of spots in this thread, we’ve touched on the denier refrain that the Germans didn’t have enough personnel in EGs (3,000 men, the 12-man squad in Lithuania, etc) to have carried out mass murder at the level documented (e.g., in this post and here). Nick Terry has also posted on this issue here.

Yehuda Bauer summarizes the situation, showing the problem with this proposition, in his book The Death of the Shtetl. The Germans had first of all the 4 Einsatzgruppen, with about 3,000 men indeed. These were complemented by “a number of battalions of the Order Police (ORP), numbering several thousand men, by additional German troop, usually rear units of the army . . .” When the initially conquered territory was handed over to the civil administration (1 September 1941 for northeastern Poland, Volhynia, and eastern Galicia), a number of rear unit of the army remained. Himmler set up a parallel structure - the HSSPFs who had command of police and SS in their areas. Also, “Himmler had, under his personal command, a special force of three SS regiments, one cavalry and two motorized . . . who were heavily involved in the murder of Jews alongside all the other units.” Thus, “[t]he number of German focus involved in the mass murder ran into the tens of thousands, far more than the 3,000 men of the EGs.”

Bauer also notes, as we have, supporting structures and units, starting with the Judenräte, which the Germans utilized to control Jewish communities/ghettos and alleviate the need to German military personnel to do so. Directly involved in the murders, OTOH, were local police forces, both mobile and stationary, known as Schutzmannschaften or Kiwis. Unarmed at first, these forces were armed by winter 1941-1942 and participated in various phases of the murder operations. Bauer studied the kresy (northeastern Poland, Volhynia, and eastern Galicia) and observed that the local militia-police units evolved: at first Germans executed the murder actions, by 1942 killing duties were split between Germans and local units, and finally the local units carried out the murders under German supervision. It was different in the former Baltic countries where the Germans raised local groups like the Shaulist “partisans” in Lithuania or Arajs Kommanda in Latvia. The local police forces also “fulfilled centrally important functions in the massacres - preparing mass graves or chasing the Jews to the railway stations and into railway cars, encircling the murder sites to prevent escapes, torturing the victims before they were shot, and preventing locals from viewing what was going on . . .”

Further, for some specialized operations organizations like Todt (Durchgangsstrasse IV), the military, or special camp administrators were pulled in, often to manage labor projects and/ore camps where surviving Jews worked. These organizations presided over attritive labor and also oversaw killing operations.

The “only 3,000 men” and “12-man squad” gambits used by deniers in discussion of the open-air murders are little more than cheap tricks relying on readers not being aware of the German police, military, and civilian personnel and the local Baltic, Belorussian, and Ukrainian units involved in the occupied East.

Bauer, The Death of the Shtetl, pp 60-66, 94, 133-134, 140-141, 148, 155-156

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

Yes there's that, true. I guess, otoh, even talking with these guys can give you cooties.

Aaaaaand you all seem to manage perfectly well on here without too many horrible deniers acting up.

Oh come back Mmmmmonstrous and do tell us of your metapedic mass master (bait) race mumblings.

Like many of them, he wouldn't stick to the subject anyway. Forum-wise if he had an in-tray of pending things that you guys had asked him about H and he'd subsequently ignored or skipped over, it would reach up to my electronic knobbly knees at least.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

On Thursday, 11 December 1941, the action began here locally to transport the first Jewish families to Riga. . . . Although this action had been kept secret by the Gestapo, the fact that the Jews were being sent off was the object of discussion in all segments of the population. . . . It should be noted that the action was welcomed and approved by the preponderant majority. Individual statements suggested that people were grateful to the Führer for liberating us from the pestilence of Jewish blood. . . . it was stated that the Jews were all being deported to Russia. The transport was to be by railway carriage to Warsaw, and then in cattle cars from there on to Russia. They said that the Fuhrer wanted to have a report by 15 January 1942 that there was no longer a single Jew in Germany. In Russia, people were saying, the Jews were being deployed for labor in the former Soviet factories, while the elderly and frail Jews were to be shot. . . .

Kulka & Jäckel, p 565

The above report recapitulated, almost verbatim, portions of a slightly earlier report, which contained a piece of interesting information not included in the later report:

. . . The Führer's speech [30 January 1942, one of the "prophecy speeches"] itself made a powerful impression on all segments of the population, influencing in a positive way the popular mood. . . . The renewed denunciation of the Jews and the emphasis on the phrase from the Old Testament "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," were interpreted to mean that the Führer's struggle against Jewry will continue with relentless consistency until it is completed and soon the last Jew will be expelled from the European soil. . . . It is significant that many regard the [Yellow Star] ordinance on marking not as a final measure of some sort, but rather only as the prelude to further, more drastic ordinances, with the goal of a final resolution of the Jewish Question. . . . The population also wishes to mark the apartments of the Jews in an appropriate manner. But most of all, they say, deportation in the near future of all Jews from Germany would be warmly welcomed.

pp 574-576

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

From Johannes Tuchel's chapter in The Participants, on Gestapo Müller (pp 119, 120):

The first Ereignismeldung came to Müller on 1 July 1941, dealing with murder of Jews in Memel area. Müller himself would sign this report and the next six reports submitted to him, before discontinuing the practice of signing them. Müller was to receive the EMs at 9:30am each day; he read the reports before their wider distribution.

One especially interesting request pertinent to the reports made by Müller came on 1 August 1941. On that day Müller asked for "particularly interesting illustrative material" which could be "presented with ongoing reports on the work of the Einsatzgruppen in the East" - for forwarding to the Führer.

Tuchel notes a relevant order to the EG leaders which Müller sent on behalf of Heydrich on 30 August: "the Chief of the Security Police and the SD asks you, on account of experience previously gained, to prevent groups of observers congregating at mass executions if possible, even if they are officers of the German army." Ironically this order was issued about the time German naval officer Reinhard Wiener shot this movie film of a small execution of Jews on the beach at Liepaja, in which the victims were forced by "the SS and the Latvian 'Heimwehr'" into the pit where they were shot. Wagner later said that "the SS was also there . . . the supervising detail was made up of SS. You can see that on the film."

The following summer, on 4 July 1942, Müller ordered that monthly reporting from the EGs "for the number of persons subjected to special treatment during the Security Police's pacification campaigns" include the following breakdown of victims: "1 Partisans, 2. Communists and functionaries, 3. Jews, 4. Mentally ill, 5. Other Reich-hostile elements, total number, previous total, final total." Jews were still a separate category to be executed and reported on.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

This post relates to reliance on German documentation, to the exclusion of eyewitness accounts - and also to the need to examine eyewitness accounts critically, for what is said and left unsaid, for example. In this case, forgetting for a moment the fiction that the EMs are fraudulent, the issue is what the reports do not say and what that silence tells us.

The Yahad in Unum team rarely heard testimonies that mentioned the night before an execution action. But one testimony did so:

Desbois, In Broad Daylight, p 59

This anomaly compelled Father Desbois to look for evidence that might explain whether such activity "the night before" was common in the murder actions and, if it was, what could explain the silence of witnesses about it. The collection of the Jews, their transport to the murder site, and the shootings were all carried out in public, with many local participants dragooned into various jobs (diggers, haulers, etc) and with even more witnesses and observers. Desbois' informants talked, many very openly, about what they saw and did in these killings. Why should the nighttime activities that preceded the killings be kept quiet?

Eventually, after coming across additional descriptions of the requisitions of locals and cordoning of ghettos the night before shootings, Desbois read the 1947 testimony of a Volksdeutsche, Alfred Metzner, who served as a local police recruit in the big Slonim execution action:

Desbois, In Broad Daylight, p 67

Desbois quotes also from a Jewish witness in Minsk who recounts rapes of Jewish girls, including the burial rape of a teenaged girl living in his house, preceding the murder action there and also testimony about sexual violence in Sokal and Brest. He thus wonders whether the reason for the silence of local witnesses about this "night before" has to do with the prevalence of rape and other abuse of the victims, including brutal shootings, and looting of Jewish property by Germans in the murder units - and the participation in these atrocities by locals.

It would not have been credible for participants in rapes, unauthorized looting, and other such violence to frame their activities saying "We had the moral right, we were obligated to our people to kill this people which wanted to kill us" - or, when on trial for their lives, for accused perpetrators to explain gang rape as "following orders" (as Desbois points out, for Germans sexual relations with Jews were in fact forbidden). And rape, wild shootings, and righteous, exhilarating rampages the night before carefully planned murder actions would not be written up in official reports from the rear areas and sent into the Gestapo offices to keep Heydrich, Himmler and other abreast of the progress in liquidating Jewish communities: numbers and simple, professional accounts would do that.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

One common denier ploy is to pretend that there were too few perpetrators among the mobile killing squads to have killed so many people in the occupied USSR. We've discussed in this subforum how many victims a person can shoot an hour or day and also helpers and auxiliaries attached to the German units (rendering arguments like LGR's "12-man squad" harmless).

In his book on genocide, Mann includes some estimates of the number of perpetrators in the occupied east:

- in Latvia the auxiliary police battalions consisted of 3,000-5,000 men in 1941 - directly murdering Jews were perhaps 1,000 of these with support from 150 local officials (under Arajs command, each man killed 87 persons) (p 283)- in Lithuania SS-led local police auxiliaries numbered 30,000 (one battalion alone killed 500 Jews a day) (p 285)- in Belarus local police units serving the Germans had at minimum 10,000 men, a "few thousand" of them involved in the extermination of Jews (p 287)- in Ukraine there were 35,000 local helpers serving under German SS and SD officers, of whom the Israeli War Crimes Investigations Office concluded 11,000 were directly involved in deporting Jews to murder sites and/or murdering the victims (p 290)

Mann concludes that in the occupied east "murderous cleansing [was] committed by somewhat more than 50,000 non-Germans" (p 312) along with 1000s of German police and military personnel operating in the territory of the USSR.

Desbois, looking at the micro-level, has an interesting case study which gets at the numbers involved, reinforcing that the Einsatzgruppen and other murder units had extensive support from large numbers of helpers, many of whom were pulled into just a single action or a few actions, not permanently assigned to mass murder. This case, involving German personnel beyond those in security forces, is described in the 1945 deposition of Josef Liefers, a German who'd been transferred east by the Bermann trucking company to manage their operations in the Rawa Ruska area. Bermann was one of 14 trucking companies in the area directed to mobilize all their trucks, for an unexplained purpose, providing German drivers and Ukrainian co-drivers, making the vehicles and drivers available for a full day.

The day of the action in Rawa Ruska, 20 December 1942, an SS man armed with a submachine gun was assigned to each truck. A car with SS officers led groups of three trucks. The trucks picked up Jews around town and, Liefers learned as his drivers returned to Bermann, took them to an anti-tank ditch about 2 km outside Raw Ruska. There, the Jews were forced to undress and shot. On the return of the trucks to Bermann, Liefers saw that the interiors were bloodied, his drivers said from Jews killed when they resisted.

According to Liefers, following the action he and others who'd been ordered to provide services were brought to a German mess hall by the Gestapo; the Gestapo chief Späth explained to those assembled that the threat of typhus had required the Germans to conduct the executions of the local Jews. "At the end," testified Liefers, Späth "said that no one could leave the room until he had signed a paper. . . . The content was basically, 'I guarantee, by my signature, that I will keep a strict silence regarding the procedures and actions taken in Rawa Ruska and its surroundings'" upon severe penalty. Liefers added, "As we went out, there was a table where we all had to sign, about four hundred and city Germans, men and women." (Desbois, In Broad Daylight, pp 100-104)

Indeed, the pledge was a bit of a case of closing the barn door after the horse has fled, but the significance for Desbois here is in the numbers. Liefers identified 450 "extra" German helpers, probably uncounted in other tallies of killing squad officers and members, local auxiliaries, etc, certainly the type of support personnel ignored by deniers. In just Rawa Ruska. From a single testimony.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

Bartov (Anatomy of a Genocide, pp 163-167) provides a detailed description of the procedures which the Germans used in the first EG execution of Jews in Buczacz following Barbarossa. The execution took place in early August. Bartov cites testimonies given by Vlodoymyr Kaznovskkyi, head of the district militia and local policeman Mykhailo Huzar and quotes from each. I'll annotate, in italic, the list of procedures I compiled from Desbois' book to compare what Desbois discovered with this account:

Statistical Mechanic wrote:roles in the actions which I've jotted down as I read Desbois' book:

- Decision of timing of action: made by local Gestapo or a regional Gestapo office In the case of the first EG shooting in Buczacz, the timing was at the command of the Tarnopol Security Police; a dozen Gestapo men came to the offices of the local police to inform them that "they would be carrying out an execution" (Kaznovskkyi) and required police assistance.- Choice of execution site: made by local Gestapo The site, in a forest outside Buczacz, was chosen by three Gestapo men who brought a group of local police with them.- Notification of action to local police: made by police chief of Schutzmannschaft, e.g. the day before an action over telephone, with deployment of armed policemen to take place that night; the nature of action and orders for the mass executions are given to the ranked policemen on the day of the action In person by delegation of Gestapo officers from Tarnopol; list of names of victims (men held in local prison) provided to local police by Tarnopol Gestapo- Local village authorities: staroste (mayor) and desiatnik ("alderman") for requisitions local police notified, no additional linformation- Overall supervision of execution process: chief of SD along with chief of Schutzmannschaft Tarnopol Gestapo- Requisitions of locals for various jobs: diggers, transporting Jews by cart to killing sites, erecting barbed wire enclosures, plank providers and movers, pushers, grave fillers, sorting, mending and/or selling clothes, pulling out gold teeth, cooks, translators local policemen were requisitioned for helping with site selection, to dig the grave, and to help shepherd the convoy of selected victims to the site; no additional information- Requisitioners: German police/SS, Volksdeutsche, local police, staroste/desiatnik Tarnopol Gestapo- Interpreters: locals, Germans stationed in the east- Grave planning, including dimensions and plot: made by superiors, and telephoned, e.g., in case of Voronovo mass shootings, “architect” phoned Voronovo from Lida to tell German installed as police chief what dimensions to dig; digging site marked out by Gestapo Tarnopol Gestapo with assistance of local police- Barbed wire pens for Jews in ghettos: requisitioned locals using their own tools - Grave digging: performed by requisitioned locals under command of Germans and/or local police local policemen- Surrounding Jewish dwellings, cordons, roundups: local police and German units Kaznovskkyi: "The Germans [Tarnopol Gestapo officers] instructed me to choose a group of policemen who would escort the condemned and take part in the shooting"- Rapes: by both Germans and local policemen prior to the first EG shooting action, according to another witness, "German soldiers, led by Ukrainian dregs, broke into Jewish houses and raped young girls"; yet another witness saw Ukrainian policemen taking Jewish women from their homes and how they "mishandled" the women, p 167- Jews to the pits: mainly local policemen and SS, sometimes assisted by local Volksdeutsche as above, "the Gestapo men, along with the selected policemen" (Kaznovskkyi), walked the column of victims through town to the pits in the forest- Ammo toter: local who'd been requisitioned for his sled but usually German members of killing squads- Pushers: locals and Germans? not clear . . . not specifically mentioned by Huzar described that "numerous Gestapo men" arrived by car and walked to the site with the convoy and that Germans guarded the site, in a meadow in the forest where "the policemen watched over them"; Gestapo men took one or two victims at a time to the forest where the pit had been dug "and shot them there"- Planks over pits: reuse of locals’ planks, locals move the planks as needed during actions- Shooters: generally identified as “Germans” or “SS” or “Gestapo” but also local police Gestapo men with participation of local police participated as instructed by Gestapo- Counter: person assigned to make a cross in a notebook for each victim to inform reports to Berlin on numbers shot- Cooking for the killers (and for the fillers): locals- Dealing with blood in the pits: to soak up the blood, locals were requisitioned to use lime or ash- Forced witnessing: local children different to this, in the Buczacz case, "The wives of the prisoners were running behind the column and crying" (Huzar)- German atrocity tourism: Wehrmacht soldiers- Official photographers: German Propaganda Kompanie photographers (PK units)- Dealing with victims' clothes/belongings: initial sorting and culling by local policemen supervised by SD officer; final mending, etc by locals – who sometimes received some items for their labor- Auctions of goods taken from Jews including furnishings: SS men supervising locals- Grave fillers: locals, often bringing their own shovels, supervised by SS Huzar: "the grave with the corpses was covered up by the policemen"- Evening debrief and celebration: might be presided over by Gebeitskommissar, includes German and local policemen

Desbois stresses that, except for the German personnel, victims and helpers were - and had usually long been - neighbors and often friends

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

Two additions, one of great significance and especially painful, to these procedures surface in later actions in Buczacz (pp 176-179): First, along with the utilization of local police in the murder-action round-ups, the Germans also mobilized the Ordnungsdienst (Jewish police). Bartov quotes at length from the testimony of a member of the OD, Yitzhak Bauer, who when he was 18 years old had been requisitioned to assist the Germans in the murder actions and subsequently, following the murders of his parents, had fled to the forest where he fought in the resistance.

The OD members were used in the murder actions in Buczacz in various ways: preceding actions, they forced Jews to surrender their property; they rounded up Jews for forced labor; armed with axes, the OD members joined Ukriainian policemen and Gestapo officers and guarded the local roads and hunted down Jews trying to flee the roundups during the murder actions; they also assisted directly in the round-ups, entering the hospital to take patients to waiting carts (in earlier actions, for removal to the shooting pits and in later actions, to Bełzec) and witnessing shootings of patients by Gestapo men during the round-ups; finally, the OD men helped Waffen-SS men collect belongings of the Jews who had been rounded up and sent to their deaths.

Second, officials of the Organization Todt's labor service (Baudienst) took an active role in the round-ups. Bauer testified that he saw the local chief of the OT Baudienst shoot a Jewish woman (Janice Hirschhorn) near the hospital during the round-up in April 1943.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817